Boxes are commonly used in transporting, moving, conveying, sorting and storing goods and materials, and are employed by a diversity of industries such as trucking, warehousing, manufacturing, office moving and household goods moving.
In its preferred embodiment, the box of the present invention is made of either corrugated cardboard (“corrugated”) or paperboard. But it could also be made of other materials including, without limitation, plastic, metal or wood.
In a preferred embodiment, the box of the present invention is both foldable and collapsible. As a foldable box, it is initially die cut, as a pattern, from flat sheet stock, such as corrugated. Thereafter, such die-cut flat sheet is folded along various fold-lines and glued or stapled until it has been “formed”. Once formed, the box can typically be maintained in either “open” or “closed” position without need to either return it to flat sheet stock or re-form it. When a formed box is in open position, it can be quickly and easily collapsed into closed position, thereby conserving space. In reverse, when a formed box is in closed position, it can be quickly and easily opened, thereby making it available to hold contents.
In one scenario, the box of the present invention can be shipped from a factory as flat sheet stock, thereby minimizing both production and shipping costs. The box would be later formed by the final user. In another scenario, the box could be formed at the factory level and then shipped in closed position, thereby reducing shipping costs as compared to boxes that require shipping in open position.
In an alternative embodiment, the box of the present invention could be made from parts that are not cut from flat sheet. As an example, without limitation, such parts could be molded of plastic using a process such as injection molding. Where applicable, such parts could be hinged together using any of a variety of hinging methods.
A major benefit of the preferred embodiment of the box of the present invention is that, when in open position, both the top lid and front door of said box can be opened at the same time. Thereby, objects can be loaded into said box (or unloaded from it) without either lifting them over a front wall or sliding them under a top wall. Such configuration in which both the top lid and front door are simultaneously open is possible when said box is either standing alone or positioned at the top of a stack of other boxes.
In its preferred embodiment, when the box of the present invention has other boxes stacked above it, the front wall of said box can still be opened. Thus, another major benefit of said preferred embodiment is that frontal access to any box in a stack is possible. Thereby, objects can be loaded into, or unloaded from, a lower box within a stack without lifting the box or boxes above it.
Since both the top wall and front wall of the preferred embodiment of the box of the present invention can be opened, said walls are referred to herein as a “top lid” and “front door,” respectively U.S. Pat. No. 3,796,342 to Sanders et. al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,693,387 to Stonier disclose collapsible containers. However, the Sanders and Stonier containers only allow top access. Neither container allows front access or can be formed from flat sheet stock, as does the box of the present invention. Nor do the Sanders and Stonier containers disclose: (i) a combination of both front and top access, (ii) any form of a front lid or front door or (iii) a combination of a front door and top lid, as does the present invention. The benefits of the present invention over Sanders and Stonier are significant in that the present invention minimizes production and shipping costs and allows (i) frontal access to any box in a stack without removing the boxes above it and (ii) easy loading and unloading with lifting objects over a sidewall or sliding objects under a top lid. Furthermore, in a preferred embodiment the structure of the present invention comprises a pair of vertical inner sidewalls (items 203J and 203K in FIG. 5C) that provide additional strength for bearing a load; the Sanders and Stonier containers lack such inner sidewalls.